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AVN Wins Legal Battle against HCCC

As per recent reports, it has been revealed that an anti-vaccine group, the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), has won a legal case against the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC). The NSW Supreme Court has clearly told that the HCCC has no right to issue any warnings to other websites.

The AVN officials told that they filed a legal case against the HCCC when they asked the AVN to put a cautionary notice on their website, which states that "should not be read as medical advice". The HCCC asked the AVN to do so in July 2011.

The NSW Supreme Court has now closed the case by announcing that the Health Care Complaints Commission has jurisdiction to issue any such warnings to any website including the AVN.

However, the HCCC told that they were forced to ask the website to issue such notice. They investigated the AVN website and found NSW couple blaming the AVN couple for the death of their four-year-old daughter due to whooping cough.

The HCCC involved the NSW Office of Liquor, and Gaming and Racing (OLGR) in the move and they also criticized the website for not complying with the announcement. The AVN said that there was no reason for which they should comply with the given directions.

The AVN clearly told that the HCCC does not have any power to investigate the complaints. Moreover, they can file another case against them for investigating their website without permission. They have further claimed that the HCCC action has made them suffer loss and rating of their website has also gone down.

Justice Christine Adamson said, "However, the court did not find that Australia's leading anti-vaccination group was innocent of misleading or dangerous conduct as the commission had found”.